MADISON, WI -November 10, 2004 -NimbleGen
Systems Inc. announced today the availability of services using
their new ENCODE microarray, designed in conjunction with the
NHGRI-funded ENCODE (ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements) Project Consortium.
Among two dozen organizations awarded ENCODE grants in September
2003, NimbleGen received two. Researchers who received ENCODE
grants are meeting today and tomorrow, November 10th - 11th, to
compare data and foster collaboration and interaction to move
the Project along.
NimbleGen's ENCODE microarray is available
via their standard service model to life science researchers.
The single array contains more than 384,000 unique 50mer probes
selected from 30 megabases of human sequence data specified by
the ENCODE Project Consortium. These probes are tiled, or spaced
apart, every 38 bases, thus creating a 12-base overlap between
probes, which is important for high-resolution mapping of binding
sites. ENCODE researchers have found this design ideal for mapping
transcription factor binding sites and chromatin structure using
ChIP (chromatin immunoprecipitation) methods. The design also
has been employed to study DNA-methylation patterns in the ENCODE
regions.
NimbleGen is playing a key role in the ENCODE
Project in both examining existing technologies and developing
new ones. The company's new ENCODE microarray is being used and
generating results for Consortium members, including the Ludwig
Institute for Cancer Research (UCSD) and Stanford University.
"I am very impressed by the performance of the NimbleGen
genomic tiling arrays," said Dr. Bing Ren, UCSD Cancer Center.
"The results generated from these oligo-based microarrays
are remarkably reproducible and agree very well with results from
our custom-built, PCR product based microarrays."
NimbleGen is the only provider to offer ENCODE
arrays with both long oligos and high density, two factors that
enable greater hybridization specificity, higher content, and
thus fewer required experiments. In addition, because of the inherent
flexibility of NimbleGen's Maskless Array Synthesis (MAS) technology
in manufacturing arrays on demand, the NimbleGen ENCODE array
contains the sequence from NCBI build 34, a relatively recent
data release upon which the ENCODE Consortium will standardize
for the Project.
The ENCODE Project is the next step following
the sequencing of the human genome and aims to catalog its functional
components, including genes, promoters, exons, origins of replication,
sites of replication termination, transcription factor binding
sites, methylation sites, chromatin modifications, and more. The
consortium defined a representative 1% of the human genome-44
regions over several chromosomes-for the first phase of the project,
which is surveying existing technologies and reviewing new technology
developments. NimbleGen's made-to-order microarray technology,
combined with long oligos and high-density, provides the ideal
solution for Phase II of the ENCODE project and for investigating
the remaining 99% of the genome.
NimbleGen's ENCODE array design is part of
a larger program at NimbleGen to provide researchers with cutting-edge
tools to investigate protein-DNA interactions on a genome scale
using ChIP-chip analysis. ChIP-chip allows the researcher to discover
new functional elements and to elucidate the wiring diagram of
the cell, the connectivity between transcription factors and their
target DNA sequences. The combination of this new tool with other
genome-scale applications like DNA methylation and gene expression
enables researchers to gain insights into genome structure and
organization.
About
NimbleGen Systems Inc.
NimbleGen Systems (http://www.nimblegen.com/) is the leading supplier
of custom-designed high-density microarray products and services,
offering unprecedented flexibility for genomics research. NimbleGen's
Maskless Array Synthesis (MAS) technology combines photo-deposition
chemistry with digital light projection to shorten array fabrication
from months to hours. Customers benefit from extreme flexibility,
optimized array design, highly reproducible array fabrication
and statistically robust results-all with low cost and quick turnaround.
NimbleGen is working with scientists around the world to develop
and deploy a wide range of new microarray applications.
